FiberTribe

Shark Snack

And so tonight or tomorrow I'm off to the store to buy a new boogie board. No, peeps, I do NOT envision becoming a shark snack, thankyou very much.  It could happen anywhere but the panhandle of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico generally have more shark attacks than anywhere on the east coast of Florida.

And my momma taught me early on to keep a sharp eye out for fins.

Am taking off on Friday to make a nice, long July 4th weekend of it.  We're in full blast furnace summer now and the only place to be is within 10 ft of the ocean. Mind you, every other South Floridian has the same idea this weekend so the only way I'm going to get that close to the lovely ocean is by getting up early to get A) a parking space and B) a chaise longue and umbrella.  So with any luck at all, I'll get a good and gentle workout on the frozen shoulders (yes, they are still unmoved by my efforts) AND flummox those on neighboring chaises by knitting on the beach. My favorite Miami pastime.  And I signed up for my first session with a trainer for tomorrow. Woot!  But I figure I better wait till I know him better before I ask to take a picture of him (a la Margene and her trainer, Tyson), heh.

A big shout out to Mia for her lovely giftie of Sonata and a dragon-critter. (pictures one day soon). And I have been terribly remiss in not thanking missy Michelle for the giftie of gorgeous stitch markers. I love them.  Since I'm ogling several new projects and am braindead at memorizing patterns, they will come in handy soon. 

It occurs to me that Charlotte shawls are not the only web we weave here in blogland.  It's a web of loving kindness, care, and laughter that sure has carried me through some rough days this past year. Mwah, all you lovelies.

Knitting Bhutan Style

For those of you who missed it the first time around last September and just 'cause I'm still over the moon that my photos came back to me... here are a few more shots of Bhutan. And you KNOW I had to find a knit shop, right?  In Wangdi, population, oh, maybe 1000? sigh. please tell me how I can be homesick for a place I've never lived?

That's grandma there, mother of the proprietress below, standing with her husband.

This is not everyday wear, this is sunday best, so to speak. The once a year Tsechu celebrating the life of Guru Rinpoche is on at the Wangdi Dzong (combination municipal HQ and monastery). All that's missing is the woman's beautiful silk overjacket. The sleeves of her blouse are cuffed over top of the jacket sleeves and are of a coordinating color. Just extraordinary. Oh. And the fabric of both their garments is handwoven either by her or one of their relatives, most likely. 

Here you see the full outfit on two stylin' bestest friends. This was NOT big american person taking photos of the natives, btw. This was two perfectly gracious little people openly and joyously sharing their big holiday with me.  You'll have to take my word for it but the entire country has the most gracious and sophisticated populace of any place in the wide world I've been. And I've been around...It has nothing to do with wealth or education, either. 

So, join me for a sip of that fine Bhutan whine..... I wanna go to WAAAANGDIIIIII....!

Time and Tide...

...wait for no woman, eh.  Well, the roof fix seems to be holding though it may take a few more days for the faint mildewy smell to dissipate.  Christ on a pogo stick, everything in South Florida is mildewy at this point.  However the sun did shine over the weekend and I did get to knitting. Life is very good.

The Yarn Shoppe up in North Miami Beach is open on Sunday afternoons, thanks to Shayna, the wonderful owner. She's a recovering corporate lawyer whose also very wonderful mother stops by to knit and chat from time to time, too. So for a little knitterly comradeship, I stopped by there on Sunday afternoon.  I continued the very undramatic work on the twist-in-front recent Vogue # 5 short sleeve top. But 9 inches of stockinette is less than thrilling, si?  So no photos till I have a finished back and sleeves. Maybe not even then because though I think it will be gorgeous when finished and a pleasure to wear (oh, please, oh please) it just doesn't look that inspiring as oddly shaped curled up pieces of red.

Oh, yes. I'm still looking at the Lapis colored Giotto and drooling. Does that count?

So ignore the knitting for now. Go find a copy of Some Danger Involved, a mystery set in 1880s London by a relatively new author, Will Thomas.  It stars Cyrus Barker, a Scot and his Welsh assistant, Thomas Llewelyn. It's great fun. So much fun that I ran to the bookstore to pick up the second book by Thomas, called To Kingdom Come. It's good but not as good as the first. Then again, the first book took him 5 years to write and the second only a year. One canna fault the man, cap'n...

Come to Mama OR Omigod, Ask and Ye SHALL Receive...

Oh, my peeps, never, never, never, evah doubt that if you see it, feel it, believe it, it WILL come true. What you see above is one of hte formerly lost-with-the-stolen-computer pictures from my trip to Bhutan last September. I was going through one of the endless stacks of stuff I'm clearing out and found a semi-empty CD folder which should have had Caroline Myss CDs in it. Instead I found a CD I had burned and evidently forgotten of ALL the photos from the second half of the Bhutan trip. The hair stood up on my neck, I shouted, I screamed, I did the happy dance of all happy dances. The cat looked at me really weird. Heh.

I have been calling that computer and those photos and emails back to me since the day it was stolen. More photos to come. In fact, I don't think I previously shared the one below. Margene? This one's for you. Off to the right and shrouded by clouds is Jhamalpuri, the sacred goddess mountain (part of the Himalyas) that is protected and no one is allowed to climb. Since 1935, at least. It is the view of the mountains from the Dochu-la Pass. (la means pass in Dzongka. And Tibetan) The pass with the 108 stupas erected to restore harmony to the world after a war to push Indian rebels out of the Bhutanese lowlands.
And Wooliemama? I haven't forgotten you, your 500th commenter giftie will be on its way to you by the end of the week. Just been feeling a bit overwhelmed.
Remember, magic is everywhere and miracles abound. mwah.

 

Punk-ass Knitter

I freely confess, the only knitting that's going on here right now is that which occurs while waiting for doctors. Eh.  And 3 inches of red cotton twist knitting is not that riveting, we agree? Mais, oui. Why so French today, you ask? Go see Lee-Ann at Fuzzy Logic and you'll see why. Le sigh. Her 101 things put me in mind of a certain ex of the inimitably Francais persuasion. Damn, don't the good things only always jump out in retrospect? We will NOT discuss sex here today, no, we will not. Ahem. Nor certain tracks of Enigma. Heh.

But if I have been only so-so on the knitting front I have been reading. Tiger OS X, peeps. I'm new to the Mac world and there is much to learn. I am missing certain things from my years with the Anti-Christ (spawn of Gates) and I just know the solutions are out there. Speaking of which, does anyone know if the freeware Open Office that's available for apple pcs is TOTALLY compatible and interchangeable when it comes to ms office word and excel documents?  I would dearly love to avoid fattening the coffers of the anti-christ further by buying the Office suite for mac.  And Catherine D? if you're reading here, I can't Ichat yet because despite signing up for .mac it is blocking me from registering.  and does anyone have a thought about how iPhoto stacks up against Photoshop?

'k. nuff geekhood.  I did buy (at full retail price, yes, I supported my LYS to the tune of $40 extra dollars compared to WoolNeedlework prices) 4 skeins of Colinette Giotto in Lapis to make this, well, I can't find an image so will take a photo and post later. It's a wrap cardi that I hope will be perfect for the over-airconditioned summer-in-Miami dwellings. (Once again confirming my knitterly ADHD.) Ah, but it's luscious.

Wish me luck, peeps. Am seeing three new practioners in the next 2 days in search of a thaw for my increasingly immobile shoulders/arms.  Still trying not to freak out.  If the lesson is increased compassion for and empathy with people with disabling health conditions, I am so there.

Wined and Dined

...my mother, that is.  Yesterday was her 85th birthday so we went out to dinner to celebrate. I am truly lucky because she is in good health, still drives and takes care of herself, and generally looks likes she's in her late 60's. Her grandfather lived to be 109 and so when she was speculating over dinner about how much more time she has, I reminded her that I've always said she's good for 120. god help me. She IS a Gemini and they really are all crazy, as in two-natured. Everything is going along just fine and then out of nowhere, wham. Now don't jump on me but seriously, peeps, I grew up with her and I know. As a result I have only ever gone out with one Gemini and you do not want to know how that turned out. It's to the point that when I did the online dating thing if the person's profile indicated Gemini, I just hit delete.  And those Geminis ususually are damned good-looking, gotta hand it to them. 

All you lovely Gemini peeps, take this with a grain of salt ONLY because it's coming from a very implacable Scorpio with Aries rising and that is possibly one of the worst combinations with a Gemini.  And you know she says the same thing about me.   She wanted a warm and fuzzy daughter who wanted nothing more than to live next door to her and drop by every day, ask her for advice, etc.  Instead she got the changeling from hell. Heh. I love her dearly but it sure is easier to love her dearly from a distance.  Anyway, daughterly duty was accomplished and we actually did enjoy ourselves.  who knew?

Knitting content will return sometime in this lifetime. Really.

I YAM ZOOO HAPPEEEE!

No, it's not drugs, ya'll are such cynics, tsk, tsk...I'm happeee al a Francaise because this is my first posting actually done on my new PowerBook (courtesy of Becca and Catherine D.'s sage advice re: Thunderbird and Typepad, etc.).  And I am happy for the lovely and spirit-lifting gifties from Gina and Neena. A Mad Love Mug and the most lovely collection of cedar and lavender and sage soaps and balms and skin soothers wrapped with a piece of what sure does look like petrified wood and raffia, respectively are the gifties. Thank you, O Lovely Women. All I can say is that when I do get out to where you both live (and I WILL, by goddess get there) I will bring you some small token from Miami Mice-Land. And maybe that day you'll need a bit of a lift and it will do the job for you, too. Sure did lift my Monday out of the doldrums.

Next job is taking pictures of the gifts and uploading them on iPhoto. But tonight I managed to open and save some photos from the Boy's computer I emailed to myself from there this weekend. In celebration of that here's a gratuitous photo. Oh. Damn. I just remembered that not only did I lose my Bhutan photos to the thrice cursed thief but also all the Tucson photos. anyway.

That's me looking at the foliage at the Spanish Monastery in North Miami last Sunday. We were attending the christening of Dani and Vicki's beautiful new baby, Marai Siri.

OK. Here's one more of Mischief, da Boy's new kitty, about which I raved in an earlier post. Is she not the fluffiest ball of kittiness ever? (your kitties and mine excepted, of course)

Big Apple

And I do mean BIG apple... as in the new powerbook. wow. I sprang for the big screen version but oddly, the screen actually view is small and in the middle. To my eyes it has smaller print and images than my former Toshiba (may it burn the fingers of the bastard that stole it). I haven't yet figured out how to enlarge the frame that displays whatever I'm viewing. It kinda defeats the purpose of the big screen. If I can't work it out am tempted to take this puppy back and settle for the 15 inch screen. If they'll do that, that is..
And I miss outlook and my IM with images. Quibbles, peeps. it is lightening fast and the colors are amazing. Gimme a few weeks and I'll be totally smitten...
thanks for bearing with my travails.  Tomorrow night will hold nothing more ambitious than grocery shopping and much knitting. Life in the fast lane, I know. Mwah.

P.S. If this post looks weird it's because Typepad ate my WYSIWYG again. what's up with that?

A Caring Place...

Like Margene said in her post today, Blogland is a caring place. Thank you all for the kind comments and good computer advice. It really puts a smile on the face of a bitchin' week.  Yes, the madness continued into the insurance realm and to make matters worse, much of the mess is due entirely to yours truly f-ing up in truly innovative ways. Large sigh.  Lessons learned painfully, believe me and I won't bore you with the details because it's rapidly descending into farce. And the outlay of large sums of cash. Eh.

Anyway, thanks in part to all ya'll's good advice, I am the proud owner of an App*le P*ower Book. It's gorgeous and not yet hooked up so blogging will still be a bit sketchy till then. And yes, computer gods & goddesses, I did buy an 160GB external hard drive to establish good back up habits from the get go. This is in addition to .mac backup.  Call me paranoid but, hey, having been burgled 3 times in 9 years in the same hood, well, maybe it's not paranoia.

I will reply to your emails as fast as I can after I have the delightful techy conversations that I know will be needed when I try to get my Hellsouth DSL up and running.  And as relaxation and reward?  Inventorying all my stash and books (and every other goddamned possession in my house) onto my sleek PB.  Anyone up for a PB cozy KAL?   ooooooh, yes. 

But seriously, metal clad doors, new locks, thresholds, frames, roof repairs (on top of it all, pun intended, the roof is leaking. no, i'm not joking.), all of this is a serious wake up call to get my financial house in order. The good news? As my mother always says, out of something bad, something good comes.  The bad news? All weekend getaways are temporarily postponed.